Insist on Facts, Please

Folks, as I watch the wrangling in Washington, DC, I get more and more frustrated.

The Republicans don’t think anything they do is wrong. So whatever the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, says or does must automatically be right.

And the Democrats don’t think anything they do is wrong, either. So whatever they say must be right, too.

What this does is alienate literally everyone. Because no one takes responsibility for anything. And no one ever admits wrongdoing.

And I’m tired of it.

The thing is, as I watch all this nonsense, I want to remind you of one thing: No matter what is being said, get the facts.

Insist on facts, please.

Do not allow your own biases to be confirmed or denied unless and until you have facts.

And when you see something like a release of a memo by one party (as reportedly will happen within days) about the FBI supposedly doing something wrong, where a whole bunch of stuff can’t be confirmed or denied due to being classified — when the memo by the other party is blocked by the party in power (as the Republicans are going to release the memo authored by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, but won’t release the memo authorized by Democrats) — you must absolutely, positively insist upon facts.

If one party — in this case the Ds — says that the Justice Department and/or the FBI should at least be consulted before releasing the memo due to possible classified information being there, and that the other party — in this case, the Rs — refuses to even consult with the professionals in the area, that is deeply troubling.

And it looks like facts are being ignored, at least from here.

Still. Even now, when all sorts of things look wrong and are annoying and frustrating and nonsensical, get the facts. Get as many facts as you can, before you condemn.

So, while I continue to condemn tribalism and reflexive thinking — if you’re an R, everything the Rs do is good (even if it’s not), or if you’re a D, everything the Ds do is good (even if it’s not) — I urge you to be smart, be prudent, refuse to be snowed, and dammit, to get the facts before you make up your mind. (Please?)

7 Responses

Well an annoying person might ask you to Prove this statement “The Republicans don’t think anything they do is wrong. So whatever the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, says or does must automatically be right.” 👿

Of course, to be fair the annoying person might ask you to prove the statement about Democrats. 😈

Well, my view, Paul, is that none of us is 100% correct all the time. Mother Teresa did not see herself as 100% correct all the time. Neither does the Dalai Lama. Neither did Father Damien, the Leper Priest — and those three people are among the most saintly we’ve ever had on this Earth, which no politician can possibly compare with.

I thought you, of all people, would agree that we should wait for facts, and not just pop off. (I don’t trust anyone right now in DC, because I can’t figure out what’s going on because I don’t have facts. I don’t like how it looks, but I don’t have facts. So I am waiting for facts.)

It’s a tough call, right now, to find facts, though. We are inundated by spin, and that is annoying in the extreme. I hope we can all agree that facts matter, and that there is no such thing as “alternative facts,” though there may be such a thing as an alternative interpretation. 😉

It is a very difficult task to gain a balanced perspective as to what is exactly taking place. We have a similar issue in the UK with our Brexit.
That both sides in a confrontation will try to denigrate the opposition while trying to paint themselves as pure is an old as the time two groups argued over where to build a settlement.
Looking for ‘facts’ and ‘truth’ is like trying to put mist in a box as these are both variable currencies in politics. The safest course for any individual to weight whatever they consider is evidence, make their own judgement without favour for either side and hope they’ve made the right on.
In our own UK case I know either a Conservative Based or a Labour Based government will be in charge at some stage. Although I have a hard-left stance I have little confidence in Jeremy Corbyn as a leader of a nation nor particularly like the ground swell of his followers who can at times look like a mirror image of your own Alt Right. But I have to make a decision in the next election…..hard call.

Yeah. I completely understand, Roger. I hope a good candidate will show his/her head…it could still happen, maybe? But sometimes all you can do is make the best choice between a bunch of lesser choices, and those are the types of things that make us all want to pound our heads on the desk.